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Siding Salvaged

Well, we slept on it. And talked. And researched. And reminded ourselves that this back wall of our house was our “tester” wall and that, now that the vinyl had been removed, it could only get better. There was no going back!

So here’s a mostly-photo-tour of what we did:

1. We cleaned (scrub brush, gloves, eye protection, etc.). We removed the rotten board below the window. I love how you can see the paint outline where the decorative moulding above the large window used to be! It’s the little joys…

2. We primed the the wall with exterior latex primer we bought for $10/gallon at the local Habitat ReStore. We used about half the gallon.

3. At this point, we made a decision. There is a good chance we will be building off of the back of the house so much of this “tester wall” may go to “waste”, but some of the siding was so old and in such bad condition that we knew we needed to replace it… if only for the few months it will remain. Water/Insect damage to a home structure is an ugly thing and it is a relatively cheap fix.

So, we went to McKinney Lumber Yard in Melissa, Texas where we were learned (for sure) that our siding was 6 inch, beveled, CEDAR siding (which is why it is 50+ years old and still kickin’). We were able to find replacement siding– 6 6′ planks for around $36 total. Great. We also picked up these beauties from a road-side farmer’s market:

We then removed the sheet metal that was covering the ghetto holes in our walls as well as the badly cracked boards– 5 in total (we bought one extra for mess-ups.. *cough*). I affectionately nick-named our house “Gap-toothed Betty” at this point only because the holes remind me of the pre-braces gap I had in between my two front teeth. You could almost fit a quarter in between them! [Ignore the color samples– that’s a later post!]

4. Remember those cedar planks we just mentioned? Well, we primed them:

5. We then clipped the nails under the existing siding around the “gap” and slid the skinny side of the new cedar planks (cut to size) under the existing siding and nailed them in! It was that easy…

NOT.

We definitely nailed the first new plank in left stud to right stud. We high-fived and stood back, only to realize that the plank was WAY crooked. We measured the difference– 3/4 of an inch!!! Can you believe that?!? Dirty words… We had to take a brief lunch intermission at this point.

Post-lunch we pried, cursed, and clipped nails again. We measured 3 times, nailed the left side– we measured another 3 times, nailed the right side– and then we secured the nails in the middle. Duh. The rest of the planks went in like clock-work.

6. We caulked with silicone caulk from the ReStore- $2.57 a tube (same tube was about $6 at the local box store). It was an almond color, but since we were painting over it, it didn’t really matter what color it was. The only bad thing about the caulk from the ReStore was that they only had 2 tubes, so we had to visit the box store to purchase some more. It was at this point that we realized that silicone takes up to 7 days to cure– Ummm… Oops? So we bought tubes of white latex/silicone blend caulk that cures in a few hours and was significantly cheaper.

Here she is with replacement planks and caulking completed! You can see the almond caulk on the left where we filled in massive nail holes from the sheathing under the vinyl.

We painted most of the wall today. Can’t wait to show you, but we have a few more loose ends to tie up!

Welcome! We're Aaron & Erin and we're happy you're visiting Upcycled Ugly! We're renovating a quirky, little house in a suburb North of Dallas and use Upcycled Ugly as a place to document our days and projects. Grab a beverage of choice and make yourself at home!

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